Conor McGregor’s coach, John Cavanagh took to his Facebook profile this Sunday morning, following UFC Fight Night 138. In an emotional post, he talked about Artem Lobov. In his post, he took a step away from statistics as he gave his argument for why the fighter should not be cut from the UFC.
At UFC Fight Night 138: Moncton, Artem Lobov took on Michael Johnson in the co-headliner of the night. He would lose the fight, although it went to a decision after an extremely entertaining 15 minutes. The judges scored the fight 29-28, 29-28, 30-27 in favour of Johnson, as he won via Unanimous decision. The loss brought Artem’s record up to 13-15-1.
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In his post, Cavanagh talked about Artem Lobov as a fighter, and who he was outside the statistics of his MMA record. He also addressed the fact that many people thought Artem Lobov was only in UFC because he was friends with Conor McGregor.
In a long and emotional post, Kavanagh broke down what makes a fighter, and why Artem deserves to remain in UFC despite his losses. He talked about the trend of only looking at a fighter’s record to judge them, citing the fact that Lobov had entertained in each of his fights, and brought actual competition for the higher ranked fighters, like Cub Swanson and Michael Johnson.
He also revealed a video in his post where Artem was spotted sparring with and pushing Conor McGregor from an earlier time, revealing he had been doing this for over 10 years now. He finally stressed on who Artem was as a person. He admitted ‘The Russian Hammer’ would never be a Champion in UFC, but he had won the respect of everyone on the roster through his performances nonetheless.